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NBC, CNN drop Clinton projects

NBC and CNN have both pulled the plug on projects about potential presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In July, NBC announced with fanfare that it was developing a 4-hour minseries about Clinton and had tapped Diane Lane to portray the former first lady and former secretary of state.

The project was blasted by the Republican National Committee and others who feared that Clinton would be given softball treatment. They worried the miniseries would be little more than a campaign commercial for an expected run by Clinton for the White House in 2016.

In a statement, NBC spokesman Richard Licata said, “After reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movie/mini-series development, we’ve decided that we will no longer continue developing the Hillary Clinton mini-series.”

Licata didn’t elaborate on the reason for the network’s reversal.

Earlier on Monday, CNN confirmed it was scrapping plans for a documentary about Clinton after that project’s director, Charles Ferguson, wrote in the Huffington Post that pressure from the Clintons had made his project – which was always intended to be controversial – too difficult to complete. The Clintons, he said, encouraged their friends not to cooperate with his project.

“CNN gave me complete control (‘final cut’) over the theatrical version, and a generous budget,” Ferguson wrote in a blog post on Huffington Post. “And then the fun began. ... Only two persons who had ever dealt with Mrs. Clinton would agree to an on-camera interview, and I suspected that even they would back out.”